The most recently concluded report on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has again demonstrated that she was killed when her driver, who was legally drunk at that time, crashed the car in which she was being whisked away from a hotel where she felt her privacy being infringed.

Blood tests show that she was not pregnant at the time; no one saw the supposed stroboscopic light that was shone in the driver’s eyes or else the other mystery cars that were supposed to have been used to force the driver off the road. Surely this will be enough to satisfy even the most suspicious?

Of course not: ah, cry the conspiracy theorists, this just proves that the spies or the spooks or whoever the so-called criminals might be got to the leader of the inquiry. The blood test? Obviously someone substituted the original. The lack of evidence? Well, that’s what they want you to believe.

Who would benefit from such a murder? Nearly everyone, apparently. What are the motivations that people have to believe in conspiracy theories? According to any rational evaluation of the evidence, the death of Diana would be dismissed immediately as a caution against drinking under the influence of alcohol. Yet so many people want to believe that something else is going on – despite the fact that it is almost impossibly to believe that the British government or its shadowy secret services would be able to keep such a huge secret for so many years, notwithstanding numerous examples of evidence to the opposite.

In his book of articles principally written in the aftermath of the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA, author Mathias Broeckers argues that conspiracy is an inherent part not just of humanity but of life altogether. To conspire, he argues, is to ‘breathe together’ and to co-operate in life strategies. Hence, we are all conspiring all of the time. This forms part of introductory comments which are then followed by the articles Broeckers wrote as new information became available and which are based on internet research, which is always a problematic methodology to employ.

Internet information is immediate, is not always properly checked and is not subject to peer review. It is also too easy to dress up poorly written and researched material in another, more respectable guise. Consequently, following Broeckers’ arguments and agreeing with them requires a certain cast of mind, a propensity to believe in the conspiracy theories being proposed, even those which vary article by article as new data are revealed. The author asks mostly sensible questions and does not needlessly sensationalise his claims and is possible to understand how he was able to sell 100,000 copies of the book in his native Germany. What he is unable or unwilling to address is the obvious incompetence of the current president and his administration: why should we believe in the long-term and complex conspiracies that the Bush family and their cronies might somehow have set into motion when it is much easier to believe that they are all a bunch of buffoons promoted enormously above their ability? When Bush, for example, was told about the first attack on the World Trade Towers, he looked vacant and then, absurdly, continued telling a story to young children. Is that because, as some would suggest, he already knew about the attack and may even have been responsible for it? Or, which seems rather more likely to me, he looked vacant because his mind is vacant most of the time. This, after all, is a man who famously does not read and does not ever carry a pen around in case he wants to write something down.

The work of Mathias Broeckers is perhaps most useful in helping to understand the modern German sensitivity and the ways in which at least some Germans view the world. It also poses a number of questions about details of the events discussed which are worthy of greater consideration. Are we at the limits of our ability to control the world and our security in it or are we somehow deliberately undermining that ability for the secret benefit of a shadowy elite?

The following review was contributed by: John Walsh PhD:  Professor at Shinawatra International University CLICK TO VIEW  John Walsh's Reviews